A Very Special Baptism

My niece, Rebecca, was baptized this Sunday. My husband and I were honored to be among the sponsors for her!
My sister-in-law married into a huge family, and with that comes huge gatherings. They had a very fun baptism reception at their house afterwards, and I offered to make cookies. I think the final count was 58 cookies- a new record for me.
My mother-in-law pinned some ideas on Pinterest of the beautiful crosses and dresses.

Here is how they turned out:

  

Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

The sweetest 6 year old I know had her birthday party a few weeks ago. And since her momma (my BFF) is the best party thrower, it was a peanut butter and jelly themed party! 

I offered my cookie services, and she sent me the link to a cookie that is so precious! I think they turned out cute, but I did have a few challenges this project. Biggest one- my flood icing never fully hardened! It could have been one or more of a few possibilities, but I think it was the fact that I put almond extract in the royal icing. I won't make that mistake again. 

Okay, so I'm not going to post a tutorial for this one, because a. Sweet Sugarbelle already did that here and b. My cookies weren't quite as cute as hers.

This post is about how I made these cookies with very little time.
Start backwards from the "due date" and then you will know when to start. I have an infant who needs me to hold him- a lot. Which I love!!! But it's hard to get anything done. So, I've had to plan a little better this time. He sleeps very well in my baby carrier, so I can get things done in small increments of time. 

Here is the schedule I used for this project (2 dozen cookies):

Saturday- make 2 batches of cookie dough, put in freezer

Tuesday- make 1 small batch of royal icing, put in fridge, put dough in fridge to thaw
Wednesday- make icing colors and put in piping bags and bottles, put in fridge
Thursday morning- roll, cut, and bake 2 dozen cookies, put leftover dough in freezer
Thursday mid morning- pipe the crust along the outside of the cookie
Thursday afternoon- phase one of icing (use 20 second icing to do the bread color)
Thursday night- phase two (use flood icing to make peanut butter or jelly)
Friday night- phase three (pipe the smiley face and pink cheeks)
Saturday- Party day!!

Here is how mine turned out:

I'm currently working on the baptism cookies. I hope my royal icing turns put better this time!